


Take it Easy

by RunningInHeels (TheXWoman)



Series: Safe and Sound [1]
Category: Under The Dome (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Canon Compliant, F/M, Feels, Happy Ending, Light Angst, On the Run, Post-Canon, Post-Finale, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Romantic Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-01 15:31:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15146180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheXWoman/pseuds/RunningInHeels
Summary: He used to wonder why his dad stayed in Zenith. Then he thinks about his mother’s love for the city, and her picture propped on the table in his father’s office, and he thinks about Julia Shumway.There are things more important than sunsets.





	Take it Easy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Clockwork](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clockwork/gifts).



> Just a sweet little post-series snapshot written for my friend. <3

Barbie always liked the way the sun set in the desert. Okay, sure, Maine was nice enough, although Zenith particularly hadn’t been much to look at come the twilight hours. He used to wonder, back when he was a kid, why with all that damn money his dad still seemed happy as could be in that half-excuse for a city. Barbie cut out the minute he could, traveled to the furthest desert he could find, and begrudgingly returned, but he was always chasing something more. There were better places out there, bigger places, prettier sunsets.

His gaze drifts to his right and she’s there. The glow from the horizon casts her in bright orange, her hair alight around her shoulders. Her disheveled locks rest against her flushed cheeks, kissed with too much sun during their hike earlier that day. She has her back against his hiking pack, her legs bent at the knee and an open book resting in the dip. Her nose scrunches slightly and her blue eyes are almost translucent when the rays of the sun hit them just right. She’s all fire and ice, scorching looks and sharp edges, comforting warmth and a cold breeze. A dry wind picks up enough to blow an errant ringlet into her eyes and since Barbie doesn’t have a camera, he takes a snapshot in his mind.

He used to wonder why his dad stayed in Zenith. Then he thinks about his mother’s love for the city, and her picture propped on the table in his father’s office, and he thinks about Julia Shumway. 

There are things more important than sunsets.

“What?”

Julia pulls him out his poetic reverie and he shrugs in an almost childlike manner, like he has just been busted sneaking a cookie from the countertop. “What?”

“You’re staring,” she says as she folds the book in her lap closed and sets it to the side. The sun is slipping further now, risking an eerie twilight she wouldn’t be able to read by, anyway.

“I wasn’t.”

“You were.” She raises her eyebrows. Barbie avoids her chiding gaze and returns his attention to the fire he had started and partially abandoned so he could enjoy the view.

He doesn’t want to admit that the way the light hit her reminded him of their first morning together, when the sunrise spilled through her bedroom window and spread over them in a glow. He opened his eyes that morning to see her, really, for the first time. It wasn’t the moment he fell in love with her, but it was the moment he allowed himself to be in love with her: a distinct difference.

“Have you given any more thought to it?” 

It takes his brain a moment to catch up to what she’s asking and his mouth curves into a pouty frown as he grabs a stick and pokes the fire. A few embers arc through the air like fireflies, extinguishing before they are swallowed back into the flames.

“I don’t know, Julia. You really think it’s a good idea to go back there?”

“No. But I also don’t think it’s something we can run from forever.”

“We’re not running from it. We’re moving on. There’s a huge difference.”

She lets out an exasperated sigh; it’s a habit she’s formed lately, and one that gets under his skin. “You don’t know the difference. You’ve been running since the day we met.”

Barbie’s gaze flashes up to meet hers. The sun is nearly swallowed into the mountains now, and her eyes are ice again over the soft glow of the fire.

“We were both running from our problems. I was just taking the more traditional approach.”

Her mouth sets in a soft line but she doesn’t argue with him. Barbie learned to outsprint his past. Julia was never much of a runner, so she just learned how to sidestep hers.

“Neither of us can outrun Dawn if she’s really back,” Julia finally says, and Barbie is pretty sure he’s seen similar looks on soldiers’ faces before they run blindly into battles they are sure to lose.

“Hunter’s footage made it pretty clear she’s back.”

“Barbie, I think the fire gets the message.”

He didn’t realize that the gentle prodding to coax the flames in front of him to life had turned into a barrage of quick jabs until his half-charred stick gave way, snapping against a log that slouched to the side, flicking up another swarm of fireflies briefly into the cooling air.

Barbie dropped the stick and brushed his hands together. It took him a moment to finagle himself around the fire so he was closer to Julia, not quite next to but not quite adjacent either, just enough distance between them to fill with a conversation neither wanted to have.

“I just don’t see the point in going back to Chester’s Mill. She’s not going to be there. Hell, no one’s there. The people who weren’t there on Dome Day don’t even want to go back. Why would we?”

His question lights and fades like the airborne embers did and it seems like the night has completely swallowed them before Julia speaks again.

“Do you ever feel guilty?”

“Why?” He toes the ground with his combat boot. “Because only six of us walked away or because of what we did to make that happen?”

She’s fiddling with her engagement ring now, turning it around her finger in an endless cycle. It’s a new habit she’s picked up since Big Jim threw his surprise reunion, and Barbie wonders if that is what is going on in that head of hers too; if everything they’ve gone through is just a cycle she chases over and over again with no end in sight. They went right back to the road after watching the footage of Dawn, because what else were they supposed to do? She was nothing but a passing figure on a security camera. They could keep running from her, or maybe she was running from them, the same way the Kinship ran from whatever came for their world. 

Eventually someone was going to stumble.

“Joe didn’t deserve this. None of them did. Angie, and Linda, and Melanie—”

“I know, Julia.”

“Carolyn and Alice, and now Norrie won’t even—”

“I _know_ , Julia. But will it change anything if we go back?”

“Will it change anything if we don’t?”

The orange glow from the fire reflects differently than the sun did against her cheeks. The sunset gave them an almost alien looking sheen, whereas the fire splashes her features with something dark and alluring, almost dangerous. Three words that would probably never be used to describe Julia, but there are five people in the world who know at least the last one is true.

“We can’t run forever. One day we’re going to have to go up against her again. It’s only a matter of time. And if we want the kind of life we talked about—” 

“—we do—”

“—then we have to stop running.”

When neither of them talk Barbie realizes he can hear the sound of crickets sawing away in the distance. Somewhere to the east of them a pack of coyotes whoop into the night air, like children screaming into the void.

“So where do we stop?” he finally asks. “Not Chester’s Mill. Zenith? Chicago?”

Julia wrinkles her nose again, the small shift seeming to reposition the darkness around her into something less sinister. “Stopping doesn’t mean going backwards.”

“Okay, somewhere new, then. Denver? Albuquerque? A corner in Winslow, Arizona?”

She pushes her leg straight and manages to make the toe of her tennis shoe come in solid contact with his boot. He rolls his ankle to tap her back playfully.

“We haven’t seen Seattle yet.”

“Seattle it is, but you’re buying the umbrellas.”

Barbie reaches the distance between them, his hand wrapping around hers. 

“And what do we do when we find her again?”

Her engagement ring bites into the flesh of his palm and, still, he squeezes her hand tighter.

“We do what we did the last time. We survive. Until then… Let’s just slow down enough to actually live a little.”

He brings her hand to his mouth, his lips brushing against her skin and he smiles as her cheeks flush, her red hair falling in turbulent waves around her blue eyes, the bright soul of her shining through like the setting sun, like the prettiest sunset Barbie could have ever dreamed.


End file.
